Precision Pays

Pioneer Hi-Bred expanded their mapping and record keeping services today with its announced acquisition of Georgia-based MapShots Inc., a privately-owned agricultural data management company that develops and sells proprietary crop management software.

Pioneer, which has had a long-standing business relationship with MapShots, will now be able to extend its Pioneer FIT mapping service and information available through GrowingPoint website record-keeping service. FIT mapping is part of a suite of services that Pioneer sales professionals offer to growers to help them achieve effective hybrid and variety placement.

MapShots, known for the EASi Suite brand of crop software, will continue to sell, support and enhance this line of desktop software for growers and professional service providers. They will also continue to license core precision ag components to other companies for inclusion in their products and services.

Click here for all the details.

You don’t usually think of precision agriculture when it comes to the dairy industry. However, I heard it this morning in a press conference for GEA Farm Technologies at the World Dairy Expo. So I asked their CEO and President, Vern Foster, what he meant by it. Basically, he says that agriculture is changing and even in a dairy there’s a growing need for owner/operators to get online and see what’s happening in a milking parlor when they’re not there and to do more precise measuring.

You can listen to his answer here:

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I was attending their press conference because the company we’ve known as WestfaliaSurge is now part of a new brand, GEA Farm Technologies. As Foster explains, “It’s to pull all of the organizations that are part of GEA Farm Technologies, Houle, Norbco, WestfaliaSurge, pull it under a common brand so it makes sense for the marketplace, makes sense for our investors, makes sense for our customers and our dealer distribution.” The GEA stands for Global Engineering Alliance, a 5.3 billion Euro company that operates in 50 countries. Vern says, “It helps us really re-focus under one umbrella as we continue to grow and create additional organizations and innovate into the field of agriculture.”

A new report from Position One Consulting Pty Ltd, in conjunction with Eric Gakstatter, Contributing Editor to GPS World magazine, says that the worldwide precision GPS market will rise from US$3 Billion in 2008 to US$6-8 Billion by 2012.

The report includes global trends, demand and applications for high-precision GPS technology; starting with precision GPS infrastructure, continuing through the market for GPS receivers, finished GPS goods and concluding with GPS augmentation and distribution services. Markets covered include surveying, engineering, agriculture, mining, deformation monitoring, GIS, marine and aviation for both machine control and non-machine control applications.

“The adoption of precision GPS and GNSS products and services, particularly for machine control, are reaping impressive productivity gains for innovators and early adopters”, said Rob Lorimer, Managing Director of Position One Consulting. “This report is in response to the growing demand for more detailed market intelligence regarding precise positioning products and services and the markets in which they are used”.

A free 14 page abstract of the report can be obtained by emailing them at abstracts@positiononeconsulting.com.

Precision applications are showing up in all kinds of agricultural applications. Here’s a new report from On World about utilizing wireless sensing solutions to manage water usage.

Facing a water shortage crisis and the demands of a global economy, farmers are turning to wireless sensing solutions to save labor costs, increase yields, improve quality, and conserve water, according to a recent report by ON World. The emergence of standards based short range radios, advanced network protocols, and the availability of low cost backhaul technologies, have made wireless sensor systems an affordable competitive advantage for farmers/growers.

ON World’s recently published report, “Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart Crops” analyzes the drivers and return on investment for adopting wireless crop monitoring solutions for several crop types. It includes global and US Total Potential market size forecasts, in-depth profiles on the top six wireless crop monitoring vendors, analysis on WSN technologies such as IEEE802.15.4 and mesh networking including several power and performance simulations using the wsnSimulator™.